I want her to rise up again
like when she lifted her blue
skirt looking at how brown
I am taking off my shirt
and there are somethings
you learn if you were born
on a farm where I watched
her shadow in the middle
of the night overlooking mine
in the dark where we hid
from the light listening
to the wind, that sad poet
of the unknown pulling back
the dead eyes of those singing
sweet songs in the long night.

Somewhere along the way
I picked up a heavy load
of dead wood, a couple of degrees
east of East Tennessee,
a few bottles uncorked,
problem women, and another
woman, a child, and a mortgage,
all while I wandered down the left fork
of the wrong road like the red silt
in a river that has forgotten
its source, but enjoying the scenery,
the journey, and, of course,
the paths I tended to leave
through the high weeds where I lost
myself and my footprints so loud
I could hear them before I left them
on the ground behind me
like hollow dreams trampled down
beneath the feet that I follow.

Stars of tragedy.
Stories of their untimely demise
Told soberly in newsprint.

Stretching from Africa to Mexico,
Victims of natural disasters, crime,
And of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

What was here is lost.
What was warm is forever gone.
These envelopes that remain can be stamped with anyone’s address.

In the end, it’s all the same
Dust
That settles in the melting ***:

Empty shells littering beaches,
Dried-out husks,
Vacant houses.

The dead are all around us
they are as alive
in their way
as we are
in ours

We share a world of shadows
with these manes
and step awkwardly
into the light

Every breath of the wind
is a dead soul passing
every autumn leaf that falls
a secret hieroglyph
from the beyond

Beasts in the wild
know this
thus the coyote
sings his mad lament
the raven turns his dull eye
toward the east
expecting not light
but a flight of dark wings

And dark wings
command my attention these days
my eye
turned inexorably toward
the night

Where every word
is farewell
where all commerce ends
and I rejoin the stream of stars

Done with all of this.
And surely
it will be bliss.

This moment only

No preparation

Beach scrape
Yellow edges

Some turtles
Eaten yolk

Some beached
Some salt consumed

Some swim forever